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"You Haven't Needed Me..." I wrote two chapters of Runt today, after which I did an illustration that has nothing to do with that story, or any other for that matter. Just playing with ideas. As of the time frame of Trials and Tintinnabulations Sidebottom hadn't been seen in years. Where has he been all that time? Inspired by When Rabbit Howls, but only in terms of imagery.

Aw, poor Sidebottom. That's a great interpretation of him after years of not coming around. It's also a nice contrast to the one you did earlier where he's the more vibrant one. Although, on question. The title is "You haven't needed me," is that the reason for his not showing up? Becuase I would think that if Boober hadn't needed him it would mean that Boober had learned to loosen up and therefore Sidebottom would still be doig something (does that make sense) Sidebttom seems to show up when Boober's surpressing him most is what I'm getting at.

The Count: Exactly, Penny Dreadful is more or less a Muppet Elvira, with a touch of Divine.

Gonzo's Hobbit: Don't be sorry for Sidebottom. You're right on the nose; he shows up when Boober has been starving himself of fun. When Sidebottom doesn't make himself known, it's because he's content to be Boober. Hence the picture: he's faded into the background, but he's happy because he no longer needs to act up to get what he needs. Boober just hasn't realized that yet, that's all.

In my stories, Sidebottom would rather not have to manifest himself, because doing so means separating himself from Boober, becoming only a small subset of a person. Oh, he'll do it in a heartbeat when there's a real need, but as soon as that's over he wants to re-integrate.

Originally I wanted to show Sidebottom lying down, as if he's been asleep all this time, but the problem is that with only a mouth to work with I couldn't get across via facial expression that he was merely dormant, not dead. So I drew him sitting back in a comfortable (sorta) resting position, as if he had been still for so long that stalactites and stalagmites had grown in front of him. (And through one foot. Ouch.)

One thing I've been wondering about: how does the style of arms and legs I've been drawing on the Fraggles look? I like drawing limbs with a bit of shape, which is definitely different from the puppets, but simple tubelike limbs look blah to me. I like to imagine that there's a realistic body, with bones and muscle and stuff, under the skin. How does it come across to y'all? Lifelike or weird?

The Count: Exactly, Penny Dreadful is more or less a Muppet Elvira, with a touch of Divine.

Gonzo's Hobbit: Don't be sorry for Sidebottom. You're right on the nose; he shows up when Boober has been starving himself of fun. When Sidebottom doesn't make himself known, it's because he's content to be Boober. Hence the picture: he's faded into the background, but he's happy because he no longer needs to act up to get what he needs. Boober just hasn't realized that yet, that's all.

Click to expand...

Oh okay. The impression I got was like a discarded toy cuz I thought he was covered in dust.

As for the bodies, I never really noticed before. Looking at it again, there doesn't seem to be too much of a difference to me. There's a little bit more definition to mee if you look closely, but that seems to create more of a dimensional effect to the character so they don't look so flat.

Boober as the baby in the film Eraserhead. It's a visual gag, based on how much the doll resembles that, er, character. The film is very surreal, bizarre, freaky, and also weird. To give you an idea of what kind of lasting impression it leaves, I took a friend to see it, and for a year afterward all I had to do was very softly imitate the baby crying and she would freak out.

The Runt: I originally planned to give this story a framing sequence. Sidebottom discovers, far back in the cavern of Boober's mind, a second alter ego, a silent child. This turns out to be The Runt, custodian of Boober's past grief and fear. I decided against it because Boober doesn't need any more alters; he isn't Crazy Jane. And Sidebottom carries the traits Boober supprsses--goofiness, humor, spontaneity, et cetera--but since when does Boober suppress grief and fear?

This is my usual crosshatchy B&W style, with no Photoshopping whatsoever. (Well, OK, I did crop it.) After spending hours on Photoshop for all those other pictures, it was a nice change to just use pen and ink.

Oh look, it's a whole family of Boobers (which is a little weird but since when is anything normal around these guys)

As much as I like the picture I think you've got a point about Boober not needing another personality. Besides, I feel like past griefs and fears aren't something Sidebottom should be digging up. But it's a nice picture.

In the idea I was playing with, Boober finds The Runt and leads him out of the darkness. Who is this? Boober doesn't want to tell Sidebottom, but Sidebottom persists. And soon regrets it when he finds out what a sad tale it is. Sidebottom doesn't do depressing, fun is his specialty! Boober tells him to siddown and shaddap; he's inflicted his fun on Boober, now it's time for Boober to bring the clown down to earth. Besides, The Runt is part of Boober, which means he's part of Sidebottom too.

I thought it was an interesting idea, but, again, not a good fit to the situation, and a bit too melodramatic even for me.

Mmmm... This idea reminds me of what they did to Harvey Dent in one of the later episodes of BTAS. As if he wasn't already sufficiently fractured with his Two-Face persona, they divided him even further by having Harvey develop a third character known as The Judge completely foreign to either of his other halves. Talk about our own TogetherAgain's signature ringing true about one's mind having a mind of its own.

I can't speak about BTAS, me being the kind of person who is bored silly by superheroes. I tend to look at anything involving the deeper workings of the mind, particularly dysfunctions, in a very clinical way. Sometimes I have to throttle back on that when writing Muppet fic, heh. That's why I threw out another idea: showing Sidebottom's creation. In the end I decided that he had to have developed over time, and only started making a fuss when Boober repressed him be refusing to let himself have any fun. Before that, Boober would only notice that he was "losing time" now and again. As with the Runt framing device, I decided that this was better not written, especially since it started sounding like Sybil to me.

I love having enough ideas that I can throw the lame ones away. At the moment I'm concentrating on writing dialogue in Mock Swedish and making vegetable puns.